Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz started Epitaph Records in the ’80s primarily as an outlet for his band’s records, but soon expanded its scope to include other punk and hardcore bands like L7, The Offspring, and NOFX. Surprisingly, the label’s never mounted a company package tour until now. In the…
What you think you hear when you listen to the Golden Republic is bastard strains of the Killers, Interpol, and Nada Surf. What the band hears is an amalgam of Blur, Talking Heads, and T. Rex. But wherever the dial actually lands in the name-the-influences game, it works. So well,…
Sound Tribe Sector 9 produces elaborate live shows combining innovative visual effects with a sound that draws on elements of rock, electronica, jazz and hip-hop. Playing live and in real time, the band scrambles up an inimitable souffl that’s wildly appealing to both dancers and space travelers. The 20 tracks…
Dr. Dre has discovered a foolproof method for creating superstars. First he casts an unknown with the right profile — in this case, Jayceon Taylor, who hails from Compton, used to deal and has been shot five times. Then he introduces him via a disc whose high-profile producers (Timbaland, Hi-Tek)…
After making an indelible impression with 2002’s seismic Source Tags and Codes, Trail of Dead appeared poised to deliver a pretentious follow-up. When Worlds Apart opens with an “Overture” that includes an operatic choir and an ostentatiously ominous piano melody, it seems as if this track will be the first…
To the Extreme Brophy backlash: Jarrett Maupin’s efforts are certainly admirable. I, too, am a strong proponent of civil rights in this country, and believe the dialogue between the races needs to be reexamined to promote a better sense of diversity and understanding in our great country. Unfortunately, Jarrett Maupin…
Right now, Hank III, son of Hank Jr. and grandson of legendary country music badass Hank Williams Sr., resembles an XY version of that hirsute ghost in the horror flick The Ring. Long, dark brown hair hides his clean-shaven face as he works his fingers furiously over a red electric…
I have the funny feeling Mike Tyson knows something I don’t. Other than how to land a right cross that’ll knock a 230-pound boxer on his ass. See, I’ve started compiling a little list of the places where I’ve spotted snapshots of the former world heavyweight champ around town, and…
2/11-3/11 Get your drink on, get your freak on, and get your strap-on, because the 22nd annual Exotic Art Show is back again. “People who like to dress crazy and sexy can come here, and nobody gives them a problem,” says Baron Dixon, one of 60-plus artists exhibiting work in…
Believe it or not, there was a time when prepubescent boys didn’t have the luxury of rifling through Dad’s stash of Playboys for a little stimulation. Enter the pinup girl: She was glamorous, she was provocative, and evidently, she was titillating enough to rock the world of many a man…
Bad Education, the new film by the flamboyant Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, opens on a man sitting at a table, poring over the tabloids for stories of interest. When he finds something he likes, he reads it to his lover: Isn’t this an arresting image? Could we generate drama from…
For those viewers hailing from the lucrative under-6 demographic, Pooh’s Heffalump Movie will prove to be a suitably sweet addition to the Winnie-the-Pooh cinematic canon. The youngest of them certainly won’t recognize the story’s central message — accept others, especially purple elephant-looking creatures with dreadlocks, for who they are –…
The small Appalachian community of Whitwell, Tennessee, boasts two traffic lights and a population of 1,600, nearly all of them white and Christian. Lying just 100 miles from Pulaski, where the Ku Klux Klan was founded, this now-defunct coal-mining town would seem an unlikely place to find a memorial to…
Calling these guys the thinking man’s heavy metal band may be a lopsided compliment, like identifying Nicole Richie as the brainier one on The Simple Life. But in a field of hedonists like Poison and Def Leppard, worldly Geoff Tate and company distinguished themselves with far weightier themes than the…
Mathematicians believe there’s a formula for everything. Apparently, Mic Devious does, too. The Phoenix-based MC’s rhymes aren’t bad, but his song themes (how he’s the best MC and everybody else sucks, how he’s bangin’ the bomb-ass betties and don’t give a fuck about them beeyotches, how his dad abandoned him…
What besides the electric guitar, in nature or technology, can sound so much like flatulence and also sound so beautiful? Only a few guitarists — Keith Richards, Johnny Ramone — can make you wonder such a thing. The cover story of the latest from the Bellrays — the Riverside, California,…
Despite Andy Bell’s health problems in recent years — he’s been HIV-positive since 1998, and has suffered through a degenerative bone condition that’s required two hip-replacement surgeries — the Erasure singer’s distinctive voice is as vigorous, dramatic, and passionate as ever on the long-running Europop outfit’s 11th studio platter. But…
The cover of The Seven Autumn Flowers, the sixth album by London’s Trembling Blue Stars, features a watercolor painting of a yellow flower falling into a landscape of muted blues and grays — there’s a lake, and some dead trees, and a fogged-in mountain range towering in the background. Trembling…
Phil Buckman thinks he’s awesome. It’s not hard to see why the towering 24-year-old musician from Flagstaff feels this way, since more than 200 howling fans have packed Modified Arts to witness his whacked one-man act, I Hate You When You’re Pregnant. But if Buckman needed further reassurance, he might…
There was a time when Disney knew its place. That time has long since passed. Once content to deliver clever cartoons and the occasional film comedy starring Kurt Russell, Disney has begun reading its own press clippings and, puffed up about being “The Happiest Place on Earth!”, wants to rub…
Your inner child need never go hungry again. Thanks to local entrepreneur David Roth, who with pal Rick Bacher launched the Tempe-based cereal bar known as Cereality, the fourth grader in you can feast right out in public on Frankenberry sopped with chocolate milk; can mix Sugar Smacks with Fruity…
“It’s just not the same,” says Jersey Mike, as I ride with him toward Scottsdale in his ’96 Thunderbird, which used to be a ’96 Lincoln Mark VIII until he trashed it after a fight with his girlfriend. “It’s lost its elite edge.” “Huh?” I ask my pal from Exit…
